Doctor Who?
by The Lonely God With a Box
Summary: The Doctor has regenerated, and he lands in present day New York. There he finds the Mark of the Corsair. What could it possibly mean? K rating at this point due to character death references. It may need a higher rating before it's done. Intro story to a longer series.
1. New York

Whoosh. Whoosh. Whoosh. Slowly, a blue police box materialized. It sat there for a few moments. Then, he came out. He looked at the ground as he stepped onto the cement.

"Back alley," he thought, "Good place to hide it. I just have to hope it isn't so good that I succeed in hiding it from myself."

He looked up, sighed, and stuck his hands in his blue jeans' pockets. This was 21st century New York, after all. He walked down the alley and joined the traveling crowd. He carefully sniffed the air. He didn't know why, but he always did. Shrugging, he moved on. He continued sauntering down his way, going nowhere in particular.

"It's been a long time since I've been in the U.S.," he thought. "I have to remember to come back more often. Grace them with my presence. Or, more likely, curse them. Oh, well. Humans are smart enough to deal with me. But they can't always deal with what follows."

He was feeling fairly depressed. Of course, this was to be expected. This man was the Doctor. He had just come from a particularly grueling incident across space and time in his TARDIS. He had had the need to regenerate - always trying, both physically and mentally - and his companion had died. So his feeling of inadequacy was very much expected. Even though he told himself this, he still struggled. After all, he'd let his companion down. But what was worse was that he had lived. She had died and he had lived. So he came back to earth. But he couldn't face London again. Too much emotional turmoil. Too much pain. Too much loss.

"The Lonely God," he thought to himself as he allowed himself a cynical smile. "How true it is. I can see so much, do so much, control so much. It only falls short in this infinitive. But the lonely. The one thing that proves I am not a god. I cannot keep those I love alive. Instead, I just take them away and hurt them. Everyone I touch - their lives are ruined. What good am I anyway?"

He walked down the sidewalk aimlessly. He had nothing he needed to do, and no one to account to for his lack of commitment. "Perhaps that's why I always have a companion," he thought. "Maybe I need someone who holds me accountable. Not anymore. I can hold myself accountable. And this time, when I say no more companions, I mean it."

He wandered like this for hours. Finally, he came upon Times Square. "A fitting place for a Time Lord," he thought. He walked up and down the streets, looking at everything iconic about the place, from the ads, to the Naked Cowboy (who wasn't really naked), to the Paramount building. When he walked by the BowTie Building, he thought, "Ah, I remember those days. Those were good days, with the Ponds. I remember when I told little Amelia that her name was from a fairytale. Their whole adventure was a fairytale. Perhaps the only companions I've had where more good for them has come than bad. And then I lost them."

"You look gloomy," a voice said and the Doctor snapped out of his internal reverie. He looked up and saw a young man looking at him.

"Probably because I am," and he cracked a fake Doctory smile.

"Turn around," he said. The Doctor did so and saw nothing in particular.

"I don't see any-," he started, but never finished because when he looked back, the man was gone. The Doctor shrugged, and moved on. He glanced over at a fountain. He looked at the hot dog stand.

"Wait!" he thought. "What was that?" He looked back at the fountain. Sure enough, there was a mark. It was the mark of the Corsair, the Doctor's old friend. "But...why? How?" The Doctor was just confused. He didn't know what it meant, but he sure was determined to find out.

* * *

A/N: I know this is short. Sorry about that, but I really need some ideas. I have a whole series planned out, but this first story is proving quite problematic. So please review and give me some ideas! I had thought about doing something where the Corsair had been tracking the Silence and left a trail of clues for the Doctor to unravel. If you have other ideas, feel free though. Oh, and I also need a better title.


	2. Jack

The Corsair's mark! Here, in 21st century New York! Well, that was certainly - interesting. The Doctor didn't even know that the Corsair had visited 21st century Earth at all. But, well, apparently he had. The Doctor whirled around, and began looking on other things for another mark of the Corsair. He wasn't finding anything, and people began to look at him funny.

Okay, he was used to that. Everyone looked at him funny. He was certainly playing the part of the madman right now. Here was the smell of an adventure - just what he needed at the moment to distract himself.

"Doctor?" a familiar voice gasped from behind him. "Doctor? Is that you?" The Doctor turned towards the voice, knowing who it was before he looked.

"Jack!" he exclaimed. "What are you doing here?"

"I could ask you the same thing," he responded, with his trademark grin.

"How did you know it was me?"

"Who else runs around a city like an idiot, one minute looking like the world is falling apart and then the next like you're going to fix it? Nice outfit," he added, giving the Doctor a look over.

"Stop it," the Doctor warned, narrowing his eyes in mock annoyance. "But seriously, why are you here?"

"Because I'm on vacation," Jack returned. "Holiday, if you insist. So what's got you so excited?"

"There's a mark over there," the Doctor said, "which is the mark of the Corsair."

"Okay, so Blackbeard and his crew buried treasure somewhere around here," Jack said. "Tell me what that means."

"The Corsair was an old friend of mine, and he never left his mark anywhere unless there was a reason. I need to know why he put it here, in New York."

"Show me this mark," Jack said. The Doctor brought him over to where it originally was. It wasn't so bad having bumped into Jack. It wasn't like he could really mess the man up more than he already was. He wasn't even supposed to exist. He was just a - a fact, in time and space, never dying, never changing.

"I know that mark," Jack said thoughtfully. "Come on, Doctor."

"Wait, what?" the Doctor said, glancing around as Jack took off. "Hold on!" He ran after Jack until he caught up. "What do you mean, you know the mark?"

"I've seen it before," Jack said. "I'm showing you where." Together, they walked to the corner where the picked up a taxi. Jack wrote out the destination on a scrap of paper for the cabbie. The Doctor was sure he did it to keep the suspense up, and the Doctor was right.

"You just see this as a big game," the Doctor accused, sullenly. "You'll never grow up, will you?"

"What's the point in being grown up, if you can't act childish once in a while?" The Doctor just rolled his eyes.

"Look, I don't know what's going on, but it's got to be serious, or the Corsair wouldn't have left his mark. He never did unless it was important."

"What's happened to you, Doctor?" Jack asked. "You're - different, somehow. Colder. You might have verbally objected to my style before, but you never really objected. Not like you're doing now. What's going on?"

"Nothing," the Doctor said, so quickly that Jack knew it was a lie.

"If you say so," Jack said with a knowing nod. Then the cab pulled up to the destination, and they got out.

"The headquarters of the New York Times," Jack intoned with a theatrical gesture. "After you."

* * *

**_I'm going to try to update this story now as well. I think I'll do very short chapters like this, since the story isn't going to be all that in depth. I'm planning it to be a little intro story to a larger series plot. Thanks to Lauren Cleveland who helped brainstorm for this._**


End file.
